Via email:
“What are the odds that one could convince greater wingnuttia that pork barrel spending was the cause of the swine flu outbreak? I’m guessing there’s at least a 20% chance of success.”
I’d say 20% was a bit low.
Reader Interactions
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iluvsummr
Actually, I fully expect the Republicans to claim that blocking $900 million in pandemic preparation was the right thing to do because everyone knows that all you need to prevent a pandemic is prayer. So we’ll just gather all the Christians, point them towards Mexico and we’re all set. Prayer is free you know, you pork-barrel loving spendthrifts. And besides, how will the fundies get raptured if you adequately prepare for pandemics? Why do you want to delay their meeting with Jesus?
ferd of the nort
Swine flu was released by Obama to force socialist health care on the American people.
geg6
@ferd of the nort:
FTW
Mr. Stuck
Any good wingnut will tell you the swine flu is God’s punishment for big spending, baby killing, homo marrying liberals. That 900 million is just more bailout money for sinners.
canuckistani
You’re too late. It’s being blamed on immigration and Mexico’s leftist government. The meme is already moving, and you missed the boat.
Jay C
Well, given the fact that this latest outbreak (AFACBD) originated in Mexico, a more salient question might be:
“What are the odds that Greater Wingnuttia will try to leverage fears of a pandemic into xenophobic hysteria about borders and immigration”?
More than 20%, I’d guess: probably around 99.9+ ….
omen
rightwing callers are attributing it to al qaeda. heh
RememberNovember
sorry but disease doesn’t have a political/nationalist agenda.
/wingnutdumbfukfail
Incertus
@Mr. Stuck: Maybe that’s why Florida is still trying to put Jeebus on a license plate–twice, this time. They figure we’ll turn traffic into a big prayer service that will protect us from epidemics.
Woodrowfan
if Faux “News” says it, they’ll believe it…
The Grand Panjandrum
You just have to wonder if the FSM is poking fun at these poor bastards. Don’t a portion of Texans want to secede? Fine. Secede. We’ll let that soc1list in the WH send the tamiflu to the remaining parts of the country.
(BTW Texas if you do secede we’ll allow Willie Nelson to keep his citizenship so he doesn’t have to get a visa to enter the country. You can keep Tom Delay. You deserve one another.)
Brachiator
@iluvsummr:
Prayer, or maybe a good exorcism performed by Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal.
Or this: The Republicans claim that having the federal goverment spend $900 million is inherently wasteful because everybody knows that state and local “first responders” know better than the feds how to deal with any flu outbreak. And the CDC is further proof that big government never works.
eastriver
I got corn-holed by a porkulus and all I got was a bad cold.
El Cid
FWIW, Mexico still has a right-wing government. On the national level, the left couldn’t unify its way into a paper bag.
Actually, Obama created the swine flu so he could ban pork and introduce Shari’a law. It’s so obvious.
Zifnab
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Oh screw you. We didn’t deserve him when he was stomping cockroaches for a living. An abysmal little man with a shitty head for business and the ability to blame everyone but himself for his failures. He was a pox on our state for three decades.
tomjones
If abortion invited 9/11 down on this country, it’s not a great leap to conclude that pork-barrel spending did indeed invite this swine flue upon us.
If nothing else, it’ll make for some stimulating signs at the next teabagging event.
Zifnab
@tomjones:
Maybe they’ll all get together and spread it among themselves at the next event. Nothing would please me more to see a bunch of people screaming about socia list universal health care getting a collective case of the flu.
blogenfreude
Re: a Rove WSJ op-ed:
These people are wrong about everything.
Joshua Norton
The odds are 100% that the 28%’ers will believe anything that spews forth from their mouth-breathing pundicks.
Cris
I just now got the “pork” part of the joke.
Punchy
Does swine flu (flew) make pigs fly?
Paul L.
I am awaiting the screams of racism and xenophobe from progressive mootbats about anyone who mentions which country the swine flu outbreak originated.
Kevin
You can increase the odds by adding mention of ACORN and Soros somehow. They’re the opposite of the Spanish Inquisition…
Zifnab
@Paul L.: What does that have to do with the Duke Lacross Rape Case?
Comrade Kevin
@Paul L.: I suggest you hold your breath while waiting.
Halteclere
@Paul L.:
And why would the the statement that this flu originated in Mexico result in any thoughts of racism?
Are there thoughts in your mind that you are anticipating others calling you out for?
Joshua Norton
@Paul L.:
Oh, gee. If that happens, it’s mainly because the xenophobes, racists and bigots are the ones already screaming about it. Setting up a little preemptive defense mechanism, are we?
Joshua Norton
Check and mate.
Cris
Ah good, Paul L is demonstrating for us the OOTW. I had forgotten that a critical component of outrage is directing it against strawmen. And pre-emptive strawman at that!
anonevent
@Paul L.: This progressive moonbat is pointing out that all of the calls to close the border are stupid, because the cases in New York and New Zealand were cause by people flying out of Mexico. I don’t believe the reports that there is a tunnel from Mexico City to New Zealand allowing immigrants to spread it there.
SGEW
“Moonbat”? What is this, LGF circa 2003?
We needz new troll-speak, plz.
neff
I’m sure that if the swine flu does start to spread further in the United States, we can get it back under control by cutting taxes on the wealthy.
amorphous
OH NOEZ YOU CALLED ME A MOONBAT. I HAS A SAD.
Oh, and you felt the need to qualify it with “progressive,” as if it were some kind of epithet. You dumdumhead!
Zifnab
@amorphous: They’re a lot worse than your run-of-the-mill conservative moonbats. At least conservative moonbats continue to embrace family values.
Cris
Double dumbass on you!
tomjones
@Paul L.: I am awaiting an interesting and useful observation/point/argument from you.
gbear
In this morning’s St Paul paper, someone is claiming that Obama manufactured this flu crisis to get his radical DHS appointments thru:
I was going to ask if he was referring to the war in Iraq.
Face
And when Mike Nifong gets raped and ends up contracting swine flu from it, Paul L’s head will instantly essplode.
omen
@Punchy:
punny!
tomjones
@Zifnab: Wait, are you saying that moonbats have to pick a side now?
Martin
No, but God does, and God created the disease.
gbear
I read somewhere that someone said that they’re actually flying planes thru those tunnels in order to spread immigrants!!
zoe kentucky
I just tuned into Glenn Beck’s radio show a few minutes ago to see what his talking points are about swine flu– guess what his brilliant angle is?
Illegal immigration and border security.
The sign of a true rightwing idealogue is that you can take something like a virulent strain of influenza and transform it into a platform to demonize Mexican migrant workers.
Lovely.
Delia
I think we should all relax. The free market will take care of the swine flu pandemic. Or is that nature red in tooth and claw?
Zifnab
@tomjones: I hope not. A moonbat house divided cannot stand.
zzyzx
Well Red State now has a front page article accusing Obama of intentionally trying to have an attack happen now so he could blame it on Bush, so I wouldn’t put anything beyond them,
No really. That’s the claim.
QUOTE BEGINS BELOW HERE… STUPID BLOCKQUOTE…
So the Obama administration is working hard to release all the memos on interrogations, change all the policies Bush implemented, and clear out the old as fast as possible. Never mind that if it were done slowly over time, our terrorist enemies might not be so incited to attack.
If your working premise is that they are going to attack anyway, get them incited quickly, get it over with, and blame Bush.
There is no other justification for so quickly making us less safe.
SLKRR
@SGEW:
Read it again. He actually called us “mootbats.” I don’t know what those are, but I guess (by definition) it doesn’t really matter.
CT
@Cris: Nice colorful metaphor
Dennis-SGMM
The Republicans are about to reveal their plan for dealing with the outbreak: Less tacos – more tax cuts!
SGEW
@SLKRR: Oh. Um. Carry on, I guess.
[“Mootbat” – I kinda like that, i.e., someone who keeps on going on about something that’s moot – sounds a lot like, oh, I don’t know, still complaining about the Democratic primary]
Incertus
@zzyzx: That’s not quite as stupid as their “swim practice was just like waterboarding” diary, but fuck, it’s close.
joe from Lowell
I told you letting people from places like Kenya come here would bring epidemics.
Cat Lady
@zoe kentucky:
Cue Loud Obbs.
Comrade Darkness
We’re at 40 confirmed cases in the U.S. now.
20 yesterday, 40 today. If it is 80 tomorrow, I think I’ll stop by the home medical supply store for some surgical masks and gloves. If it all turns out for naught I can always use the gloves for handling habaneros.
Kyle
This all could have been prevented if those Mexicans had gotten a tax cut.
passerby
@ferd of the nort:
This has a good potential to thrive in the Wingnutosphere. I’d put money down on this meme. Well done ferd of the nort.
slag
Worst. Thread. Ever.
(just sayin)
Punchy
@Cat Lady: Was thinking the exact same thing. Lewd Obbs now has his show theme for the next 6 weeks, minny.
Expect to hear that now leprosy, swine flu, and probably head lice and hippopattimi are being brought to the states on the (says Lou, wet) backs of these dirty illegal Mexys.
MR Bill
Just turned on TV and CNN reports a 5.8 earthquake in Mexico City. Think that will help contain the flu outbreak?
And, in the Ace Hardware in Blue Ridge GA this morning:”They need to shut the border and keep those damn dirty Mexicans down there!”
(Ironically, Mexican and Guatemalan day laborers are hanging out for work at the front of the Ace parking lot.)
LanceThruster
“Swine flu is not just God’s punishment for bacon eaters; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates bacon eaters” ~ Jerry Fullofswill
peach flavored shampoo
OT:
Dumbest headline evah
SGEW
@peach flavored shampoo: Well, if Bill was the “first African-American president,” Obama can be the “first Asian-American president.” Hmph.
Methinks they took the Tiger Woods analogy a tad too far.
[tho’ I hadn’t heard about th’ back pay for Filipino veterans from WWII: super cool]
Xecky Gilchrist
Well, I’d put the chance at 100%. Wingnuts always blame everything on every one of their current boogeymen (and some of the older ones, just in case), and then wait to see if any of it sticks.
mcc
If the government did not coddle citizens by spending so much money on pandemic preparation, then citizens would be able to develop the self-reliance to fight pandemics themselves.
El Cid
Not only that, but if our government schools would get out of the way, then an explosion of creativity from America’s home schoolers might find a cure for this mess, perhaps drawing from their extensive experience in working in the field of Creation Science.
Phoenix Woman
Meanwhile, Rick Perry wants it both ways: He wants to secede, but he still wants to leech off the CDC.
Dennis-SGMM
This will be called the Obama Epidemic because he’s the one behind the sapping and impurification of our precious bodily fluids.
MNPundit
Nah, they’re going with Immigration.
Dennis-SGMM
@Phoenix Woman:
Perry responds:
“Texas will proceed with secession as soon as the meddlesome federal government provides us with the medicine we need. We Texans will then stand on our own (counts) two feet!”
terry chay
I think the republicans need to rebrand “pork barrel spending” as “swine barrel spending.”
El Cid
Speaking of Creation Science, our leading Creation Science researchers and teachers need to use this learning opportunity to teach the world how this variant of swine flu came about entirely via Intelligent Design methods.
Dennis-SGMM
@El Cid:
I guess you and your liberal friends were outside smoking when they taught about the Book of Obadiah in Sunday School:
“For God so loved the pathogens that he gave them dominion over the earth.”
Obadiah 7:3
justme
20%?
If the comments section here is any indication, waaaaaay more.
Brandon T
@SLKRR:
“Moonbats” are the followers of Sun Myung Moon (the guy who founded the right-wing Washington Times) and his “Unification Church”. They’re basically a cult, one that was notorious (and still is) for using attractive young women to lure men into “group marriages”. Although they seem non-mainstream culturally, they’re virulently anti-homosexual and otherwise hold very traditional views with respect to women’s roles, abortion, etc. Think of them as right-wing hippies.
Of course, the use of Moonbats to refer to liberals is incredibly ironic. “I do not think that word means what you think it means.”
joe from Lowell
Holy sheepsh*t, justme!
You know who those conspiracy-loonies sound like?
Jeremiah Wright.
joe from Lowell
From justme’s link:
Comment by Tainler 21 hours ago
I read that this could be a manufactured flu…. by our government. It stated that getting rid of millions and millions of people is one of the steps in the one world order. They have it all planned out. Our government is corrupt and out to get rid of us. Look at what has happened so far. Obama is inviting a major terrorist attack that will get rid of tons of Americans now the flu. They will stop at nothing to achieve their goal of power.
Comment by Ava Paloma 23 hours ago
Here we go again folks. There has been NOTHING that has not had a purpose since the Obamination took office. EXACTLY what this is for we will find out in next few days.
But it’s an opportunity for protest to close the borders. But nobody is organized to do this.
Comment by Kathryn Adams 1 day ago
They are behind it. It spread to NY because students were in Mexico. Look at it – it’s a very odd strain that would only been manufactured.
…
Speaking at the Washington, D.C., school’s Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel, Wright said, “We started the AIDS virus. … We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty.”
The pastor reportedly said in a sermon just after 9/11, “The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.”
Cioran Sellars
There’s no mystery here. This is what happens when we let a foreign born be our president.
Joel
@justme: That blog is priceless.
Cat Lady
@joe from Lowell:
Team Sarah. Let’s just all take a deep breath and have a moment of silence to contemplate the bullet that was dodged on Nov. 5th.
LarryB
Jindal mocks volcano monitoring…Mt. Resolute erupts.
Newt mocks, then Collins axes, pandemic funding…Swine Flu!
I can only conclude that God hates Republicans.
El Cid
@Dennis-SGMM: No, no, you read it wrong: God loves the path of gin. God likes to tie one on every other Friday night or so. And a Godly weekday might be a million human days, so, it could be still going on.
peach flavored shampoo
@Brandon T: But Paul L. didn’t call anyone a moonbat.
And therein lies the rub.
sparky
@LarryB: i think the FSM wants us to clean the GOP wax out of our ears.
JK
With the nonsense Republicans are pulling by holding up the nomination of Kathleen Sibelius, don’t forget the nonsense they’re pulling by holding up the nomination of Dawn Johnsen
The War Against Dawn Johnsen
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2009/4/27/141226/838
GregB
What’s the possibility of convincing some GOP-er dillhole like Bachmann or the King Twins to sponsor a bill demanding the arrest and deportation of any viruses that don’t have their green cards?
-G
Let’s not forget that God’s war on Republicans also includes an active volcano in Alaska that threatens an oil refinery built at the base of the mountain that is volcano-ing, the eruption of a flu pandemic on Rick Perry’s border with Mexico and wildfires consuming the state of Mark “Dumb as a bag of hammers” Sandford.
Laura W
Here’s another good question: do politicians not have access to public speaking classes? Toastmasters? Listening to Napalitano right now is just painful. “Ah…ah….ah…..ah….ah….”. She is the worst I’ve heard, and Obama and Hillary were pretty bad on the trail themselves.
I wonder does their staff ever say anything to them? Play the tape back for them for critiquing? It’s not like they’ve been suddenly thrust in front of media and cameras. It’s very surprising to me that these people, with their stations in life, are incapable of forming complete sentences without near-constant uhs….ahs….ums….
Petty rant concluding.
joe from Lowell
Sure, sure, it’s a lot of fun to mock Republicans for badmouthing volcano preparedness before a volcano erupted, and badmouthing pandemic flu preparedness before a pandemic flu outbreak, but to be fair, they also mocked Barack Obama’s willingness to authorize deadly force against pirates, and that turned out just fine for them.
MikeL
On the subject of what wingnuts believe:
The very latest from Redstate.com.
JK
@joe from Lowell
: @justme:
Judging from the comments posted over there, a more appropriate name for the group might be Team Radio Transmitters Implanted in Teeth
TenguPhule
Prepare to die of old age.
scarshapedstar
Simple!
1) Federal Reserve funny money devalues the dollar
2) Socio-fascist Kenyan President Obama orders the Fed to print more of it
3) Resulting falling wages attract Mexicans who love to work for nothing
4) ACORN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!4) Mexican swine flu.
gnomedad
@GregB:
This is the fault of liberal tree-huggers who don’t want to put forest fires out.
Dennis-SGMM
@El Cid:
Dang! I’ve been worshiping for years and didn’t know it.
LD50
—
LD50
Not to get carried away, but this is how realignments happen.
Person of Choler
Of course, the wingnuts will believe the connection between pork barrel spending and swing flu. They will believe anything that bolsters their nonsensical beliefs. Stupid people can be convinced of the most egregious nonsense: Case in point: Rep. Henry Waxman chatting with Tavis Smiley on NPR:
“We’re seeing the reality of a lot of the North Pole starting to evaporate, and we could get to a tipping point. Because if it evaporates to a certain point – they have lanes now where ships can go that couldn’t ever sail through before. And if it gets to a point where it evaporates too much, there’s a lot of tundra that’s being held down by that ice cap.”
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200904/20090413_waxman.html#
Makes former Senator Ted Stevens’s description of the internet sound like Richard Feynman on quantum mechanics.
anonevent
@joe from Lowell: Cool, Obama can cause earthquakes. I’m really glad he’s on our side.
Comrade Kevin
Does one catch swing flu at a dance hall?
chrome agnomen
iluvsummr @1
first put wind/energy equipment in front of the prayers. alternative energy problem solved!!
lamh31
***WING-NUT THEORY ALERT***
“Public Health” Didn’t Make the Cut
Comrade Darkness
@anonevent: No shit. Offerings, sacrifices, that sort of thing should be mandatory in that case.
Wile E. Quixote
@GregB:
@gnomedad:
Hah! Not only to the liberal tree-huggers not want us to put forest fires out, but they also want forests to grow, and what is the number one cause of forest fires? As any fool can see it is obviously the presence of forests; no forests, no forest fires. Therefore we should give tax breaks to the timber industry so they can cut down the rest of our forests to prevent this scourge, but Obama won’t let us, and he won’t show us his certificate of live birth to put the controversy to rest, so therefore this is all his fault.
How was that? Do I blend in well enough with the wingnutteria to go on a covert mission over at Red State and post completely ridiculous and over the top nonsense?
Wile E. Quixote
@GregB:
@gnomedad:
Hah! It’s more than that. Liberal tree-huggers not only don’t want to put forest fires out but they want to plant more forests. And what is the cause of forest fires? Well any idiot can plainly see that it’s forests. No forests, no forest fires. Problem solved. If we gave the timber companies a tax cut they’d be able to cut down the rest of our forests and thus prevent us from having any more forest fires, but instead President Obama is destroying the American economy by raising taxes on our most productive citizens and turning America into a $ociali$t country and he won’t show us his certificate of live birth to put the controversy to rest. So therefore this is his fault, not that you’ll ever hear anyone in the liberal media tell you this.
How was that? Do I have the wingnut chops to on a covert mission over at Red State and post completely over the top nonsense?
Wile E. Quixote
Damn and blast! My blockquotes got screwed up in the previous post.
Splitting Image
Someone beat you to it. And the story they sold them was that the outbreak was done to speed up Sebelius’ cabinet nomination.
See here